New Delhi: Talismanic Manpreet Singh has achieved plenty in his hockey journey, but the veteran midfielder still rues one missing trophy from his cabinet -- a medal in the World Cup -- a feat he wants to attain in the upcoming mega-event before drawing curtains to his illustrious career after the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
To his credit, former captain Manpreet has two Olympic medals -- back-to-back bronze in Tokyo and Paris -- two Asian Games gold (2014 Incheon and 2022 Hangzhou) and a bronze (2018 Jakarta), besides multiple other titles.
But one goal the 34-year-old star midfielder is still chasing is an Indian podium finish at the World Cup after 51 long years. India's last medal at the World Cup was a gold at the 1975 edition.
And Manpreet is confident of breaking that jinx in the upcoming edition to be jointly hosted by The Netherlands and Belgium from August 15 to 30.
"An athlete never stops, personally I want to represent my country for the longest time and win as many medals as possible," Manpreet told PTI.
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"We won back-to-back medals in Olympics, but a World Cup medal is still missing and I want to achieve that and fill that gap because the only World Cup medal we won was back in 1975.
"I am pretty confident this time and I have belief in the team. The mindset we showed during last two Olympics to win medals, we have to approach the same way and we will go with the same mindset to win medal."
Manpreet very well knows he is standing at the fag end of his career, but he is backing his fitness to continue till the Los Angeles Olympics.
"I have high expectations because an athlete's lifespan is pretty short, you never know what your future will be, be it your 24 or 35, you never know when some injury happens, so you have to consider every tournament as your last tournament.
"I don't know what will happen after the World Cup but I will try to give my 100 per cent," said Manpreet, who recently became the most-capped Indian hockey player surpassing the legendary Dilip Tirkey.
"As an athlete my personal goal is to play till LA 2028, maintain my fitness and give my 100 per cent, never to give up."
Talking about India's preparation for the World Cup, Manpreet said the Harmanpreet Singh-led side's main focus would be on its defensive structure.
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He highlighted the strong and weak points of the Indian team.
"We worked on our penalty corner conversions. Defence also improved, the easy goals we conceded in Rourkela was not there.
"If you look at our strongest points, there are plenty of things. Penalty corner is one area, we have Harman, Sanjay and Amit Rohidas. Our attacking and PC defence is also good. We conceded very less goals from penalty corners.
"But the important thing is we have to keep our defence strong because if you miss while attacking, you need to fall back and defend and get opportunities again to score and I am confident whenever we get chances we can score goals.
"There won't be an easy matches. We need to keep our defence strong and not allow any easy goals. We will always have to be proactive in defence and need to maintain the tempo from start to finish."
India are placed in Pool D along side England and Wales and a mouth-watering match against arch-rivals Pakistan on August 19 awaits, but Manpreet is unfazed by the hype around the blockbuster clash.
"We are approaching match by match. We are not thinking too much about Pakistan match, we are just focussed on doing our basics right."
Post LA 2028 Olympics, Manpreet wants to spent time with his family before foraying into coaching career.
"Definitely, the time I have spent and experienced I have gathered in hockey, I would like to share with the next generation. This is in my mind but for that also I have to work and study hard. As a coach you need to be very patient but all these will come after LA," he said.
Manpreet is a big fan of football legends David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo, a reason he opted for No.7 jersey while representing India.
"When I was a kid I used to watch matches of Beckham and Ronaldo a lot, when Cristiano was in Manchester and David Beckham was there before him. I used to like their hairstyle, tattoos, their work ethic, fitness, especially Ronaldo's never give-up attitude at the age of 41 which was visible in the recent World Cup," he concluded.
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